Neon Genesis Evangelion: Requiescat In Pace

Written by abi2301

Chapter 01 (Prologue)

v.01: 01/23/2005

Official disclaimer:

The Neon Genesis Evangelion anime and manga series are the intellectual and material property of Gainax Studios, ADVision, Inc., Shonen Ace magazine, Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. All rights reserved. The 'NGE: Requiescat In Pace' is a purely fictional series based upon the original NGE and written for entertainment purpose only. No money is made out of it. All themes, polemics and ideas given throughout the chapters are not to be considered as the author's opinion of society, politics, world events, miscellaneous facts and other sensible matters but rather a well-meant attempt to add more to the NGE universe by adding new layers of reality and giving an impression of what modern life and historical could be in a post-Second Impact world. The author did not mean to shock or hurt anyone and denies any attempt to discriminate, scorn or insult any potentially offended readers and would like to retain a neutral status in every matter raised throughout the series. All comments are not subjected to the author's opinions but rather his vision of how the NGE universe could be and react to certain events - especially from the characters' point of view. The rating is dubbed 'Restricted' (R) just in case any eventually shocking or disturbing element, remark or subject would show up in the later chapters.

Chapter 01 (Prologue): Return To Me Salvation / Without Hope

Do not fear the darkness, but fear what hunts in the darkness.

U.S. Army motto about night operations

He was going to die and he knew it.

His tired legs dragged him as far and fast as he could but even the distance they put between him and his doom could not stop the trickling sensation that spread throughout his spine. Death was at hand and he recognized it for what it was.

In his line of duty he had never taken the life of a fellow being but he had seen others die before his very eyes. Some of those unfortunate individuals had even been friends, dead for the values and beliefs they had fought for and finally fallen for. He had even held their hands as they passed beyond that line that was the frontier between life and death, and felt as they grew cold and finally gave a last sigh as their body spasmed a last time. Years of witnessing the horrors of life and the frailty of humans had somewhat hardened him, and given him a cold mask, like a mantle that would protect him from the ordeals of reality and hide the pain underneath. He had come to look upon those tests of strength with a certain degree of detachment, as his first experience with the passing of a beloved one or a close friend had freed him from a certain weight. Once you saw death, you grew accustomed to it. Even saluted it from afar, like an acquaintance that you didn't really know but acknowledged nonetheless for the role it had in your existence.

For some, it was a form of salvation.

For others, pure damnation.

And tonight, it was his turn to leave this world.

He already felt the cold inside him, but he knew that it was a mere effect of his own fevered imagination, worsened by the weather and his own fear. Ropes of water fell all around him, drenching him even through his coat. He was completely soaked and he was shivering in cold. His shoes were even full of water. Droplets splashed in every direction as he stumbled forward, trying to escape his destiny. Like a curtain of sorts, the rain blurred everything around him, imparting the surroundings with a ghostly look. The low amount of light even made the situation worse for him as he tried to get his bearings and find a path of escape. He stopped in his tracks, and flung himself in a dark corner, between a wall and some garbage cans, falling to his knees to reduce his profile and get out of view. He knew he didn't have much time. He had lost his pistol in the firefight and didn't have the leisure to snatch it up from the ground. He had to run away as fast as possible.

He wildly looked around him, trying to pierce the growing darkness but saw nothing. As his eyes darted behind him he saw a dead end. Knowing that he could stay long in his makeshift shelter and hideout, he got back to his feet and started to run again, panting hard. Images flew before his eyes. It was said that once you were near death memories came back to you, as if trying to make you decide whether you had lived a good life or not. Like a last judgment, of which you were the jury. The sentence and the executor were always the same. Then came the regret, laced with fear and a tinge of resignation, woven around all those feelings like a binding rope.

Why me, why today, why here? were the thoughts that flew through his head. He ran wildly through a darkened alley, trying to find somewhere where he could hide, anywhere, as long as it could protect him from his incoming Grim Reaper. He kicked wooden crates out of his path, sometimes leaping over them, or just stepping over them. He could not afford to lose time. He had already so few of it, he didn't want to shorten his already limited stock.

Why did it have to be me to go on this fucking mission? WHY? he screamed inwardly. He sniffed, trying to hold back the sob of desperation that came from his throat. Panic was sweeping over him like a tsunami, destroying every part of self-control and confidence he had in his soul. He knew what he had been asked to do and what were the risks involved. His superior had clearly given him warnings about what was at hand. He knew what would happen should he have bad luck that night.

And, Good Lord, did he have.

It's always to me that such things happen. ALWAYS! He wiped rainwater out of his face, trying to get it out of his tired eyes and stopped again. He turned away, watching his surroundings. Apart from the thunder over head and the constant crackle of raindrops falling on the soaked ground he could hear nothing. In a way, it relieved him. In another, it scared him senseless for it would mask the arrival of his pursuer. His whipped around at this very thought, expecting his demon to come out from anywhere. None in his section who had the misfortune to meet him had survived. And tonight was his turn.

His desperate gaze fell on an abandoned warehouse, one of the many that surrounded the city's outskirts. This district had been deserted for many years since Second Impact, as companies and corporations had decided to relocate at safer areas, closer to the economical sources of the country. Many things had changed since the worldwide tragedy and its scars were countless. Destruction and death were chiseled everywhere in the face of the planet and one could not wander around without seeing at least one reminder of the disaster, be it a ruin or the remnants of a buildings brought down by the assaults of Fate. The building seemed to be empty. He saw no other area around him that could provide him protection so he decided that he could do with it, for the time being. He dashed forward, slipping on the dampened stone, nearly tripping in puddles of muddy water and slipping on loose pavements. He reached the side of the construction and immediately spotted a rusty door, half-closed. He rushed to it and pressed his elbow to the surface, bringing it open itself. He stumbled inside and jammed the door back to its closed position, allowing himself to rest his back on the metallic pane and slump, allowing his legs to finally rest on the floor. He took a deep breath and sighed. He was out of danger. For now. If his mobile phone worked, he could maybe call for reinforcements or a team to take him away from this hell-hole. He frantically searched inside his dripping coat and fished out the item. He flipped it open with a flick of the finger and crushed the activation button.

The loading picture appeared on the multicolor screen, providing him with a very small amount of light in this darkened area. The overhead ceiling was falling into pieces. Years ago there had been glass panes overhead, that allowed the sunrays to bathe the inside of the building but Time had overcome their solidity. The glass was mainly gone and the ground was littered with little pointy shards of what had been those windows. Rain fell in like small waterfalls, the small noises it made echoing sinisterly in the hangar. He waited ten second then shook his head. It was taking too long. Way too long.

He got up to his feet and went as near he could to the center of the warehouse, trying to catch a communication network. Damn it! Why did NERV opt for commercial, off-the-shelf cell phones instead of military, encrypted models? Answer: too high profile. True intelligence agents never went around with high-tech systems, but with civilian ones, so that they wouldn't attract attention. Damn it. Damn it! DAMN IT TO HELL! he raged.

"Come on, come on!" he moaned to himself, fear coming back to tingle his senses. The screen was still blank, displaying three flashing words:

SEARCHING FOR NETWORK

Oh shit. Okay, say that again: oh fucking shit!

He was in the outskirts. Nobody went there anymore so the communication companies did not bother to install wireless telephone antennas in the vicinity, as they considered it would be a stupid loss of money. One that would cost him his life. Fucking, bloody, freaky shit of a day! He snapped his cell phone shut and looked around him. He saw wooden and carton boxes ten meters away and made for them. Maybe he could hide inside or behind them so that...

Damn it. Why aren't we all equipped with subdermal chips like the higher-ups do? At least we didn't have to fall back on worthless pieces of shit like that cell phone. Too bad it wasn't a satellite phone... He crawled behind them and brought his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible. I will survive, I will survive, I will survive, he chanted to himself, not even noticing the irony in his mantra. It should have been funny that it sounded like that old song that many soccer players sang during matches but his mind was too frightened to take note of it. He was too worried about his impending death to take care of such trivialities. Once again, he cursed NERV. Why did he have to be the one to tail those individuals? Surely his superiors knew that they were accompanied not only by bodyguards but also professional killers if not mercenaries directly drafted from the JSSDF or the United Nations Quick Reaction Force, right? He was not a rookie. He knew what he would be looking for. He knew what they could do. He knew that they could find him out, no matter how subtle his hideout was.

And, Good Lord, did they find him.

It was not some small caliber shots that had gone in his directions but a constant, deadly stream of bullets. Military grade weapons. That alone showed the importance of those businessmen. Low-rank people had small and lightly armed guards. The top tier personnel were followed by entire security squads that were hard not to notice but intelligent enough not to raise attention. And in his business, getting noticed was a synonym of death. Only those that could pass by like ghosts without being ratted out survived.

Now, they were hot on his trail. I hope they won't use dogs to find me.

No, not with that rain. It would mess the scent trail.

Crack.

His head snapped up while his entire figure froze, his shaking even subsiding. What was that? His whole body tensed up as he sensed the now familiar feeling of fear take his whole being over. If he didn't knew better about physics and the laws that ruled over this realm of existence he would have believed that time had come to a crawl, as seconds stretched by, distorted by the excitement that overcame his mind. His ears strained to pierce the drumming of the falling raindrops but once again the acoustics of the warehouse failed him - the very low hum of the resonance wiping out other muffled sounds that were either absorbed by the gravel beneath him or drown out in the sound background. He could feel the hair on his neck standing as his capillary muscles contracted, because of his nervous state. The wind howled madly outside, adding more tension to the already heavy atmosphere.

Damn it, what the hell was that? he once again thought. Was it Him? The agent held his breath, not daring to make a single sound or to move by a mere inch. Huddled in the darkness, his figure was nearly invisible, but he would not stand a chance in matters of concealment when it came to professional trackers and killers. His blood pounded against his eardrums and sweat gathered on his spasm-riddled forehead. His whole face was crunched in a mighty grimace that reflected his growing terror. He felt so cold...

He slowly moved his right hand, millimeter by millimeter, towards his right, so that he could shift all of his weight on it. Slowly, but surely, with utmost care, he started to lean against the side of the crate, keeping his back pressed against the rugged surface, somehow taking in how little feeling of safety he could find by touching it. His torso inched towards the corner of the box, and he moved his head closer to the edge, for a cautious peek. He had to be careful. One sound, one wrong movement and all his world would come crashing down with a full-metal jacket round. In front of him, the shadows danced, the eerie shapes moving over the walls, ever changing and disappearing to return seconds later in a never-constant ballet.

Crick.

There! Again! His heart missed a beat.

He was going crazy and he knew it. The place had been deserted for years and had been falling in pieces ever since. With the weather beating at it like a maddened animal, it should be normal that he would hear strange sounds like this, he thought to himself, trying - without much result, however - to find solace in that rather shaky statement. Paranoia was winning him over. Death would come after. I'm already dead cold. Dead.

Dear God, no. No.

It's just the warehouse creaking. Just the whole bloody building. Come on! he raged at himself. You can do it, you can do it.

His head leant back to his right, towards the corner. Just three inches, and then the moment of truth.

Three. It's not that much.

A finger's length, really.

He went back to moving, daring not to creep too fast. Human eyes were drawn to movement. This is not the moment to make a mistake. Not. Now.

As his temple went to rest on the crate's side and he turned his head to look over the corner, his eye caught something. On the floor.

S. H. I. T.

In front of him, not even two meters away from his hunched form laid an unmoving shadow. A human shadow.

His eyes widened just as his last bit of self-control departed from his terrified soul. His breath caught, preventing him from gasping out loud, stifling the sound deep in his throat before even the vocal chords had a chance to vibrate. He could even swear that his heart, his second most vital organ, had stopped beating, just as his first, the brains, froze over in horror. A single sentence rolled in his head, a reminder of his failure and his incoming doom.

He's here.

Slowly, but surely, eyes wide and forehead glistening with shed sweat, his gaze tore from the ground and went upwards, to finally rest upon the lone figure that stood not even three meters away, looking directly at him, even if he could see the head of the hidden agent only, not the rest. That was, though, enough to guarantee him a death warrant.

"No need to scream. Nobody's here to hear you."

His jaw opened in disbelief as he realized that his deepest fear had indeed come true. He was there, the one that had taken his friends and colleagues away. The professional killer that had been mowing down the ranks of the intelligence officers assigned to spy on SEELE. And He was there for him.

The agent detached himself from the crate, and turned towards the man, as he fearfully took a backwards step. Slowly recoiling from his harbinger of death. Dressed in black and night operation combat fatigues, he was the epitome of cold professionalism. He was very slender but not as tall as some touted Him to be, not even one meter seventy in height yet he knew that the darkness in the building somewhat distorted his perception. His fevered mind was another damning factor. He stumbled back, trying desperately to put as much distance between him and the killer, who noted this effort with an amused grin. His pearly white teeth eerily shone in the dark, like an evil beacon. The agent could not see his opponent's eyes very clearly, but they were glittering in glee.

"No need to escape either. There's nowhere to run to."

His gloved hand went to his hip and closed around the wood-plated grip of a modified Para Ordnance P14-45. A high-capacity Colt M1911 clone that had the reputation of being so efficient and precise that it was commonly used in shooting competitions. The man took the silenced weapon out of its holster and leveled it at its target's head. A little red light lit on under the barrel and a small red point appeared on the agent's soaked forehead.

"No last words? No epitaph for the tombstone?"

The man didn't answer, frozen in shock and horror.

"Too bad."

The weapon bucked in the killer's arm just as a .45ACP jacketed hollow point round came blasting out of the barrel, crashing its way inside the agent's head point-blank. His occipital and frontal bone exploded in a mass of gore, covering the wall behind him with small bits of gray matter and blood, filled with chunks of dark hair. The body slumped downwards without a single sound.

The killer didn't even blink as the life was taken away from his prey. Instead, he merely smirked, as if reflecting on one's futility. He holstered his pistol - not before compulsively checking that the safety catch was set on and the hammer was removed from its cocked position - and turned back to the entrance of the warehouse, where two people waited for him. Clad in black and long smocks, both of them had somewhat the look of the gangsters seen in those 1930's movies, if it weren't for the absence of the ever-present Panama hats. The coats were just used for concealing heavy weapons. He knew that beneath the clothes hung either a short-barreled shotgun or a folding stock-equipped rifle. Enormous firepower for extreme efficiency. After all, the Americans had learnt through Vietnam that massive firepower had sometimes more effect than single, long-range precision shots. Knowledge like that died hard.

"So you got him. Cheers," said one of the two, with a grim smile.

"NERV's getting more and more brazen. The ones high up should make their moves right now or next thing we know, these blokes like this one will be prancing in the open in front of us next time there will be a meeting," commented the other with a sigh. He went up to the corpse and examined him. "No chips. Low-ranked dude. No identification papers, one cell phone, keys...three credit cards - one from NERV, one from Visa and one from Sumitomo Bank United. Ah! One entrance card with a magnetic strip and a microchip. No radio transmitter...strange. Maybe GPS beacons or miniaturized infrared strobes in his clothes but we'll see that later" he concluded, standing up and putting the items in a metallic bag, specially designed to block radio and infrared waves. If there was a transmitter inside the objects, they wouldn't be able to transmit back because of the fabric.

"Then we'll do better: remove all of his clothes then the hands, the teeth and the eyeballs" the killer ordered. "Then dump the body somewhere in the nearby lakes with some weights on his legs. No need to leave his body for all to see. NERV will figure the message out even if there's no corpse to find and bury afterwards."

"As usual, as usual" replied the first accomplice as he eyed the body, steeling himself for the gory job. He had more familiarity with human anatomy than most others because of his role inside the cell. He was a cleaner, an individual tasked with removing a crime scene ('operation scene' for them since they surprisingly were reluctant to use such a pejorative term for their...art) from any evidence or clues that might lead back to them. It sometimes implied burning the whole place down, but such a thing was considered lacking subtlety if not a dead giveaway so they went for the hard way, doing the job with tweezers, acidic water and brushes. But the worst was neither wiping out blood stains nor getting rid of little bits of bone but the act known as 'skinning and disposing': getting rid of all body parts that could be used as identification means. The fingerprints. The irises. The dental molds. And most of the time they had to do it either with a cutter or a simple combat Bowie knife. A very nasty job.

"SSDD: Same Shit, Different Day."

"Exactly" the assassin agreed. Even though one day we'll be saying ACAD: Another Corpse, Another Day. "And when you're done with him, swing back at you-know-where. Our bosses will be pretty miffed up that one of NERV's guys tried to join the debate unannounced and uninvited so you know what to expect."

"Yes, sir" both of them replied, already foreseeing long hours of work to cover up the mess the shootout had caused. Police would most likely be swarming up the place in a few seconds and it would not take long until they went to search this area. So they immediately went to work, both of them tearing knifes away from their sheaths and bending down to finish up their task the soonest possible.

The man stepped outside, his eyes looking defiantly at the sky, as if daring them to comment on his crimes. He had killed more men than he could ever remember, the count ending when he didn't feel anything anymore during the executions. Humanity was no more but a detail. Survival and success were of the essence in his job. He had been raised that way and those lessons were deeply and still freshly written in his mind. It seemed as if it were yesterday that that man had come to make a deal with him, promising him revenge as long as he worked for them. He had not hesitated. He had agreed to the terms and undergone months, no, years of training for that purpose. His life's ultimate goal.

As he took a step in the rainfall, he let a wry grin pass through his otherwise cold, frozen features. His dead eyes never showed anything except for when he killed. Especially minions of that organization called NERV. He had a particular reason to hate them. They were the reason why his life had become a living hell.

And they would pay.

They would pay dearly.

For everything: the pain, the sorrow, all the suffering he had endured all these years. A past lost to utter damnation, to pure Hell. Time he could not get back and wounds he could not mend. Ordeals he could never forget. A drama he could never forgive. A ruined life he could not fix back.

His jaw clenched tight in an unfamiliar display of emotion, showing how deep his loathing of the almighty division of the United Nations went in his soul. Scars like his never healed. They stayed open, reminding him of the justice never bestowed, of the deaths never avenged and the crimes never punished.

He was there to put an end to all this and he would not stop killing until justice was done.

And satisfy his own hatred.

The Soultaker was once again on the warpath.

To be continued...

An author's note:

For those who might have taken the trouble to skim through my profile the last few weeks might have observed, between a couple rants about inability to totally retransmit a document in its original style, a mention about a series named 'Recquiesçat In Pace'. For those who do not know it, it comes from Latin and means 'Rest In Peace' and is usually found on tombstones. I originally had another quote as main idea for the title - this one coming from Caesar's famous last words before his assassination - but...well, I won't delve any deeper in my musings. You don't need to know it for some reasons.
Anyway, I said that 'RIP' wouldn't be uploaded until some time. I...lied, for lack of a better term. I didn't say the exact truth. In fact, the prologue, here, was completed a while ago, but the two following chapters still aren't since my attention has been drawn tomy other series, 'The Beast Inside'. I'm just going to post the first chapter of this new series here, wait for a while, read the reviews and then complete at least four or five chapters of the 'RIP' story before posting chapter two. I'm sorry about this unusual way of dealing with it, but things turned out quite complicated in the last few months. Those who have read my profile should know why. There is also the fact that chapter one was less easy to write than the prologue, which was finished in less than one hour, my new record. Anyway, I hope chapter two will be uploaded in less than two months, if not sooner, if I ever find enough free time to jot down what I think I'm going to do about this series. Mind you, 'RIP' will be a little bit more...gory? than 'TBI' because it deals with human beings and not Angels, but who knows? I do plan to put some Angel attacks in but...well, I'll see how it will turn out. In the meantime...

Thank you for reading and, until the next time,

Goodbye.

ABI 2301